Children discover remains in Fitchburg

Body appears to be that of woman

Two children playing in the woods behind a main street in Fitchburg found the remains of a body Friday morning in what the local prosecutor is treating as a murder investigation.

Worcester District Attorney Joseph D. Early Jr. said in a statement yesterday that police have not identified the remains, but that it appears to have been in the woods for as long as two years.

One local investigator with knowledge of the case said that the remains appear to be those of a woman and that they were wrapped up in a blanket and garbage bag.

"There was nothing left of the body," the investigator said. The remains were found in a wooded area behind the 600 block of Water Street, not far from railroad tracks.

Early said state and local police are investigating, with the assistance of the state medical examiner's office. An autopsy has not been finished.

Local detectives are still looking into several discoveries of women's remains found in similar circumstances in recent years. In those cases, several of the victims were known prostitutes. The body of Elizabeth Fardy was found in a wooded area near Westminster in 2002, and the body of Theresa Stone, 39, was found dumped in a different wooded area in Fitchburg in 1996.

Local police said yesterday that one notable missing persons case is the disappearance two years ago of Sharon Kuykendall, a known prostitute from the area. Police had no indication that the remains found Friday were Kuykendall's but are investigating.

Other nearby departments are also investigating the deaths of known prostitutes, particularly from Worcester's Main South neighborhood, at what may be the hands of a serial killer.

Timothy Connolly, a spokesman for Early, said yesterday that there was no indication the remains were those of a prostitute.

"It's too early to say anything about anything," Connolly said. "The medical examiner hasn't come back yet. We have bones, and we're looking at them. It's early in the investigation."

In the meantime, police in Worcester are digging up a yard in the city's Main South neighborhood in search of the remains of a homicide victim from some 20 years ago. The investigation is separate from the discovery in Fitchburg.

A Worcester detective said police did not know the identity of the body they were searching for or if any body is there at all. But they were basing the search on information from an informant that a murder victim was buried there some two decades ago, Detective Captain Edward McGinn said.

Last week, State Police dogs specializing in cadaver searches indicated that a body may be buried in the lot. Police considered several factors in deciding there was cause to search, including the informant, the police dog action, and the history of the neighborhood as a known gang stomping ground.

Police plan to continue the search, said McGinn, who is commander of the detective bureau.

"We'll be here as long as it takes, so we can say at the end of this, 'Yeah, we found it,' or 'Nothing's there,' " McGinn said.

Police have a lot of work ahead of them, McGinn said. The yard, at 13 Kilby St., is the site of home that was torn down. Then, a community agency developed a foundation with the hopes of building a house there. Also, a house was built up the street, near a hill, and much of the grade was filled in on the lot where police are searching.

McGinn said police must dig beyond 5 feet of top soil before getting to the original lot.

However, McGinn said, detectives were confident they will find something, given the actions of the cadaver dogs. Even if the dirt has been moved, police could find some type of evidence that would indicate a body was dumped there, such as a single bone, or hair, or clothing, he said.

The investigation was initiated by a police Unsolved Homicide Unit, which was formed in part to investigate the prostitute killings. McGinn said the three-member unit received information that a body was buried on Kilby Street two decades ago.

McGinn said police considered the information credible, given that the street was once the center of the old Kilby Street Posse.

"This particular area was a mainstay for the Kilby Street posse, and the original Kilbies was one of the original gangs in the area," he said.

Milton Valencia can be reached at mvalencia@globe.com.